Silvia Avallone – Ein Sommer aus Stahl / Swimming to Elba

Content:

Original title / Originaltitel : Acciaio

“Swimming to Elba” tells the story of two 13-years old girls, Anna and Francesca who grow up in an italian city in which people earn their money thanks to the steel industry. People are poor and all they have is the beach. Anna and Francesca are best friends, actually since ever. But both have a difficult life: Anna’s dad rarely is at home and only distresses her mother- Francesca’s dad punches her daily and her mother can’t do anything against it. To the outside everything seems perfect as both girls are the most beautiful ones in the city and everybody admires or envies them. It is no wonder that the two girls now explore love.

My opinion:

At the beginning I had difficulties with the language of the book. The sentences seem choopy (missing verb) and the word order was sometimes strange as words just didn’t were where they should. And then, already hacked off a bit, I detected a typing error! By the way, I read the german translation, so maybe those reading the english one are more lucky😉 I already began to curse the translator. But as the suspense of the story increased, the language became better, or at least it was okay for me. In hindsight, it maybe was kind of a stilistic device to show the atmosphere of this sad place.

Anna and Francesca try best to have a happy life. They play at the beach, hide at secret places and dance naked to “Rhythm is a Dancer”. As long as they are not at home, they are normal kids, that just explore their sexuality. The men in their families are not very glad about this and want to protect their kids/women of getting pregnant at an age of 14. Even if the girl seem happy, the reader notices how say they are. As the reader I was able to identify mayself with the girls, even if I don’t know such a life.

For me the story was all in grey because I had to imagine the beach with the steelwork in the background and – even worse – I always saw the already left parts of the fabric. Hardly anybody in this city has hope as only few make it to the beach of Elba. But especially the intelligent Anna has dreams – when Francesca begins to give up.

The book deals with friendship, first love, violence and life in socially deprived families. It is not only ChickLit, as one may thinks at the beginning.